The XJ 220 is a unique car. Unique both for the performance that delivers and for the incredible story of passion that led to its birth. And it doesn't matter if the debut on the road wasn't a success. The XJ220 is a timeless car, even if time has been one of its greatest enemy.
The Saturday's Club
They called it the “Saturday Club”. On Saturdays, Jaguar engineers studied and developed unofficial models, in a free space were guys can express themselfs in some toys for adults. A moment of absolute creativity, just to invent and experiment. Among the employees of the Saturday club grew the idea of a car able to compete with Ferrari F40 and Porsche 959. A high-performance fuoriserie to represent the maximum English motoring expression.
Retaining the spirit of the XJ13 project, the first Jaguar racing car powered by a V12 (and later produced against the company's owner opinion), the engineers wanted to create a model with a similar architecture, with a light body and exciting performance.
The prototype
The Jaguar management saw the project and after a doubtful period decided to show the car at the British Motor Show in 1988.
That decision was taken just a few weeks before the event and the car was anything but complete. Just to say, the car has no interior. At the event, it was unveiled as a show car.
Jaguar was overwhelmed by the requests: “You absolutely must produce it!”. The car was harmonious and very sporty. V12, scissor opening doors and all-wheel drive. The enthusiasm was so high that Jaguar started an ordering campaign for the model, in which potential customers paid £ 50,000 as a booking order.
Tough path to production
Jaguar was blown away. There was no budget, no cost evaluation and no one ever dreamed of producing that car. At that time Jaguar brand has been sold to the Ford group. Since there was no new Jaguar model on the horizon, Ford management decided to produce the car as a technological manifesto of the new management. A new company (Jaguar Sport) was created with the partnership of Tom Walkinshaw Racing (that has a long Jaguar racecar production heritage) just to produce the new Jag.
Unfortunately, the path to the series production was far from simple. The car due to all-wheel drive and the big V12 was not exactly as light as initially expected. An attempt was made to cut the costs, waiving the scissor doors and all the four-wheel drive system.
In the end, they also gave up on the V12 engine which was too bulky and expensive for a car that needed a strong weight loss treatment. A V6 unit derived from the Austin Metro 6R4 rally car took place under the hood, reaching 542 HP with the adoption of a couple of Garrett T3 turbo units. Although the Metro derived engine was even more powerful than the original V12, the production model was profoundly different from the prototype and this fueled the disappointment of the wealthy buyers.
Furthermore, the sound of a V6 is very different from a V12 and this represented a major limitation for a certain type of buyers, along withe adoption of the two Garret superchargers that gave the classic turbo-lag behaviour to the car.
Unmotivated disappointment?
The new ownership and the unexpected production slowed down the car's availability. The car was not ready before 1992. The differences between the show car and the production model fueled customer disappointment, and many redraw the order getting their money back.
The car was still beautiful and lived up to its name, as 220 stands for 220 mph, (around 350km / h). On the Italian Nardò circuit it set the speed record for production cars, reaching 350Km/h and held the lap record of the old Nurburgring from 1992 to 2000.
Missed opportunity?
In the end, 281 Jaguar XJ220 were built (from an initial esteem of 350 units). A delusion? Not really. Besides the compromises needed to put the car on the marked (that dropped the enthusiasm from the buyers), the truth is that this car, in its final conformation, had to go in production a few years earlier.
We could call it an “out of time” machine. Anyway we still have to think that everything started as an engineers “hobby”, made in one of those Saturdays spent at the club.